In the 20th century novel, “The Bean Trees” by Barbara Kingsolver, the two protagonists are Taylor Greer and Lou Ann Ruiz. These two have very opposing character traits. In chapter four, to introduce each character, Kingsolver changes the narrators voice from Taylor’s first person narrative, to an unknown third-person narrative. This shows Taylor’s upbeat personality versus Lou Ann’s more fearful and pessimistic views.
Aside from the people suffering within the camp, the trees are the only sign of life in the otherwise barren desert. The tree is a representation of a better life that has been taken away from his family and other Japanese-Americans. His plucked leaf from the tree must represent his wish for a better life. Over the winter the trees that are planted for them die and they no longer have the trees to enjoy. The boy shamefully thinks back to picking the leaf.
Jewett uses different literary techniques and ideas to convey a message of endurance and perseverance through the taxing and overwhelming environment that leads to victory and triumph for Sylvia. The tree is described using vivid imagery, first being an obstacle then becoming a marvel and beautiful after enduring pain and suffering.
Temi Aminu December 19, 2016 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith Big Idea: The big idea is the challenges of growing up in a poor, lower class neighborhood. Essential Questions: What was the hardest part of growing up? Why was reading and writing important to Francie? Summary: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn took place during the summer in 1912 at Williamsburg, Brooklyn where a tree called the Tree of Heaven grew among the tenement houses.
Andrew Solomon’s chapter on rape from his book, Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity, examined women who are raped and decide raise the children who were the product of this heinous violation. Solomon examines how rape has been perceived by different cultures over time and interviews various women who have first hand experience with rape in order to show the reader show the aftermath of this terrible crime committed against them. Initially, this student imagined rapists as outlaws who crawl out from the shadows to prey upon their victims, however, “80 percent of rapes are committed by someone the victim knows” (Solomon, 2012, p. 481). According to Solomon (2012), “more than half of rape victims in the United States
(AGG) Going through the phase of loss makes someone a new person, Najmah’s story is based off of this experience in her life. (BS-1) As a result of Najmah’s father and brother being kidnapped, Najmah changed her way of living for the rest of her journey. (BS-2) After the death of Mada-jan and Habib, Najmah’s view of her family was changed. (BS-3) Najmah becomes courageous towards the end of the book, and knows what she will do in order to survive.
When people are asked to imagine the struggles of day to day lives, they predominantly think about not having enough gasoline for their cars or embarrassing oneself in front of others. What is often over looked is the harassment and hypersexualization of women all over the world, twenty-four seven, seven days a week. Barbara Kingsolver in her work of fiction, The Bean Trees, has given readers all over the world an insight of few realistic women’s struggles in the revolutionized world. The book follows main character Taylor Greer as she deals with having an unknown baby handed to her through starting over her life. She learns the real world through an unshielded window.
Therefore, trees are used to teach the theme of autonomy through personal growth and challenging
“ A tree grows in Brooklyn” by Betty Smith is an interesting book. Every chapter talks about the poverty in the 20th century in America. The author, Betty, does not only refer poverty as the lack of food, shelter, etc. “Tree” is a coming of age story and that is one reason why I believe it should be in the ninth grade curriculum. This book teaches us about poverty, the fall of innocence, education, and sexuality.
Laurie Halse Anderson uses the tree as a motif to trace Melinda’s growth from someone who is afraid and depressed to someone who is strong and more stable. In the beginning of the story, we can tell that Melinda is very depressed despite her internal sense of humor. Since the party that she called
The tone of this excerpt is overly yielding. The narrator has a superficial lifestyle where she is happy with the home she lives in and all of the amenities she has while her parents live a content lifestyle, where they have done right by their daughter and allowed her to grow up to where she is today. The narrator cannot bare to see her parents in the state that they are in and feels that although her parents are happy living on the streets that they shouldn’t because they don’t live in an actual home. This tree symbolizes the narrator’s life. As a child, she had gone in every direction that her parents had taken her.
Tenement districts in Brooklyn throughout the early 1900s provided challenges that entire families were forced to handle. A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, by Betty Smith, depicts the Nolan family facing difficulties that even children had to overcome while they lived in one of these districts. Francie Nolan, the main character of the novel, is faced with the greatest difficulty of them all: growing up. Poverty was one aspect of Francie’s life that caused her to lack certain fundamental features of a regular child’s life. This is shown through Francie consistently being without food due to poverty, and having to discover for herself in a very difficult way that hunger was a painfully real issue.
“Mom and Dad smiled at each other and laughed. It was a sound that Tree hadn’t heard from them in the longest time” (132). This shows how Tree wasn’t sure his parents were ever going to get along again, but they end up having a good time. This is an example of how family matters most and hope is always around. This situation gave Tree strength to preserve.
The Power of Perseverance Throughout life, one must learn that in order to overcome challenges, they must keep sight of their goals and persevere in order to reach them. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith tells the story of a young girl named Francie growing up in an impoverished Brooklyn community in the early 1900s. Since a young age, Francie fantasizes about the other worlds s out there, it is through the observation of others and the books that she reads that she realizes that she must get out of her town in order to be happy. Many times throughout the book, it feels as though all odds are against her, like when she must drop out of high school to support her family.
When the boy finally comes back he is an old man and the tree says, “‘I wish I could give you something... /but have nothing left’”(Silverstein). The boy replies with saying, “‘I don’t need very much now’”(Silverstein), he just wants a quiet place to sit and rest. This story evokes not only provokes the loss of childhood happiness, but extracts memories from the reader that brain that makes them emotional. Many argue about what the story truly is getting at; if it’s about love, dissatisfaction, women and femininity, really the list could go on.
